


Mac + Pressure Points

by TetrodotoxinB



Series: Bad Things Bingo 2018 [11]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Bingo square: I will punish your friend for your failure, Broken Bone, Electrical torture, Field Surgery, Gen, Gratuitous Science, MacGyver Write-a-thon, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 18:45:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19409167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: There are some things that Mac just won't do unless pressured. Unfortunately, Jack is one of Mac's pressure points and their captor knows that.





	Mac + Pressure Points

_I’ve heard Jack say over and over again that he’s getting too old for this kind of shit, and I think I’m finally starting to understand what he means. Getting my knees slammed onto concrete every time some bad guy thinks he needs to tell me something is getting old. Six or seven years ago I’d have a pair of bruises, pop a couple tylenol, and be fine the next day. Now I’ll feel it for a week. Maybe I’ll look into acupuncture when we’re all done with this. Jack says it does wonders and it can’t make my knees hurt any more._

Mac stifles a grunt as he’s roughly forced to his knees on concrete. The room is dark, especially so after just having been hustled into the building from outside, and he doesn’t like not being able to see their surroundings. Beside him, Jack doesn’t try to stay quiet, moaning about his knees and griping about the really bad hospitality service at this particular bed and breakfast. 

There’s a few tables in front of them and Mac surveys the contents. Even Jack could easily see what they want: a bomb. Mac’s been in this situation before and he’s never built one for the enemy. He’s not going to start now. 

“I’m going to skip the intro since we both know how it goes. You know I want a bomb, and you’re thinking about how you’re not going to give me what I want. But everyone has pressure points, MacGyver. There’s always a price that someone isn’t willing to pay.”

Mac shifts, the hands on his shoulders digging in like he’s trying to get up, and he looks up at Horrell’s face. “There’s nothing you could do to me to get me to build that.” Mac read Horrell’s dossier. Apprenticed with an enforcer doing wetwork for a small-time crime syndicate at sixteen. By the he was twenty-two he’d graduated to racketeering, arson, kidnapping, and part-time work for a Chechen seperatist group for no other reason than profit. Since then, he’s done things that would make the Godfather cringe. 

Horrell smiles and Mac suppresses a shiver. “No, torture rarely breeds compliance in the victim himself. But when applied to a loved one? Far more effective.”

He snaps and the thugs holding Jack heft him up, pushing him towards a chair beside the worktable. It’s reinforced and bolted to the floor which doesn’t bode well for Jack.

“You see it now, don’t you? Good, old Jack. Your protector. _Daddy._ ”

“Oh, I don’t do that ‘daddy kink’ shit,” Jack starts as he’s forced down into the chair. “I mean, I appreciate you thinking of my needs, but again the hospitality here is a little off. Maybe stick to continental breakfast or-”

Jack shuts up when a fist connects hard with his jaw with a loud _thump_.

Mac grits his teeth as they manacle Jack, wrists and ankles, before securing him to the chair. The whole set up would be easy for Mac to get out of, but Mac’s not the one in the chair and there are seven men with automatic weapons in the room. Paperclips don’t do much against bullets. 

“You can kill both of us, I’m not building you a bomb,” Mac says defiantly. 

Horrell laughs. “Who said anything about death?” He grabs a long baton off the work table and Mac hears the crackling of electricity right before Jack’s whole body practically levitates. The chair is grounding Jack, the electricity flowing from his shoulder down through his feet to disperse harmlessly into the concrete floor. But Mac knows from experience that Jacks feels it everywhere in his body and it _hurts._

When it stops, Jack’s head hangs and he gasps for breath. Horrell lets the silence hang unbroken save for by the sounds of Jack’s labored breathing.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Mac says once Jack manages to hold his head up.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. ‘S just like that TENS unit I keep in my car. Great for the back pain.”

Mac laughs and Jack chuckles. Horrell does, too, but it sounds like a threat. 

“I think you missed something important, MacGyver.” He holds the baton up where Mac can see it better — there’s a cable coming out of the end of it that trails down to a control box on the table. “I started at the lowest current possible. I’m sure you understand the physics of electrical shocks. Do I need to explain what will happen if you don’t do as I’m asking?”

 _No, he doesn’t. You see, the reasons tasers are considered “less than lethal,” despite their questionable history, is that they rely on physics of voltage vs current. High voltage, like you hear about with stun guns, hurts. A lot. But in general, it won’t kill you. Current on the other hand, also hurts a lot, but more importantly, it disrupts the electrical nodes in the heart. So, if Horrell starts fiddling with the knobs on that control panel, Jack could be in some serious danger._

“No, I understand perfectly,” Mac answers. 

“Well, I don’t!” Jack interjects. “Care to explain?”

“He’ll turn up the current and stop your heart, Jack,” Mac explains.

“Aw, well shit. I got struck by lightning twice herding cattle in a thunderstorm. I ain’t dead yet. You think you pack a bigger punch than that, Hormell chili?” Jack asks with a laugh. 

Mac frowns, his chest tight with anxiety “Jack, it’s not funny.”

Horrell frowns dramatically and shakes his head like he’s both worried and disappointed, even though Mac knows he’s neither. “It’s really not, Jack. You should be more concerned about your health, at least for little Mac’s sake.”

“Mac, can take care of himself,” Jack shoots back, suddenly serious. “Kid, whatever he says, don’t worry about me. Just don’t give this guy what he-.”

Horrell presses the baton to the underside of Jack’s jaw and his whole body spasms. Mac jerks against his captors, but he’s on his knees with no leverage. He has no choice but to watch until the discharge stops. Jack’s face is deep red, nearly purple from oxygen deprivation since he can’t relax his neck enough to breathe while being shocked. Tears run down his cheeks and drip onto his pants. Mac shakes and hopes it looks more like rage than fear. 

By Mac’s count, it takes more than a minute for Jack to start to come around once the shock stops. He coughs and jerks, his muscles still misfiring after their prior mistreatment. Jack looks at Mac, and it’s clear he wants to say something, but before he can open his mouth, the shocks start again, this time on the inside of Jack’s thigh. Mac swallows and looks down. He can’t stop what’s happening, but he knows that the more he watches, the less time he’ll be able to hold out.

Mac wants to promise that he can hold off until the rescue team arrives, but in all honesty he doesn’t know how many more times he can watch Jack scream or spasm until he passes out before he has to do _something._ It was a lot easier to put their lives on the line when he expected a swift bullet to the back of the head; he doesn’t think he can be that brave watching Jack slowly be tortured death.

*****

_Now a basic bomb isn’t really that hard to make. A blasting cap, some det cord, and a brick of C4 is all you need. Making something with redundant, independently circuited timers is slightly harder. Making a deadman’s switch should any of those circuits be disrupted is harder but not unmanageable. Integrating both of those things with multiple remote-detonators, each of which is linked to a different SIM card, and you’ll need a degree in electrical engineering. Doing it while someone you care about is being tortured five feet away? Mistakes are_ going _to happen._

“I’m working as fast as I can,” Mac shouts over the crackling prod and Jack’s screams.

“Ah, ah, ah. Don’t lose your temper, MacGyver. I turned the current down that time; don’t make me turn it back up.”

Mac grits his teeth and does his best not to throw the soldering iron at Horrell. “I’m trying to focus but you’re making it really hard.”

“Would some music help?” Horrell asks with fake sincerity.

Mac drops the coil of solder on the table. “What would help, is if you stopped torturing my friend while I’m trying to work.”

“Oh, well. That’s not on the table. But if you move quickly you’ll have another fifteen minutes of quiet before we shock him again. Make good use of your time.”

“How about you make good use of _your_ time and get me something other than this shitty wiring you pulled off a construction site? That is where you got it, isn’t it?” Horrell narrows his eyes at Mac. “This 14-gauge. I need electronics wiring; 22- or 24-gauge. How am I supposed to make the electronics work with the circuit without the right wiring?”

“You’re the genius. Figure it out,” Horrell growls.

“I’m trying! But this romex is just going to fry every microprocessor I try to install. It’s not lack of trying, it’s basic physics,” Mac shoots back.

By the time that Mac realizes he should have kept his mouth shut it’s too late. Horrell turns a knob on the control panel and then Jack is screaming again. It goes on and on, until Jack turns blue and slumps in the chair. 

“Figure. It. Out.”

Mac wipes the tear that slides down his cheek and turns back to the table. The signs are getting more and obvious that Jack’s body can’t take much more. He has to hurry.

*****

_Electrical shock has long been known to cause cardiac arrhythmias, and Jack has been getting a lot of electrical shocks. He’s still alive and conscious which rules out asystole and v-fib, but there’s still a whole host of other cardiac problems he could be experiencing. Judging by his increased perspiration, shortness of breath, and how much he’s bringing up chest pain, his heart is having to work overtime to compensate for something. Most of these conditions aren’t fatal in and of themselves, at least not immediately. But, Jack needs a hospital sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, we still don’t have a solid exit strategy._

“Bring it online.”

Mac’s heart pounds. He hasn’t finished and he knows there’ll be a price for that. “It’s not ready yet.”

“You told me that two hours ago!” roars Horrell.

“Well it wasn’t ready then either,” protests Mac.

Mac sees Horrell reach for the prod and moves to stop him — Jack’s heart can’t take much more. He doesn’t even get halfway there before the thugs grab and pull him back. 

“No! Please! I’m trying! I’m working on it, I swear! I just need more time!” Mac pleads. Jack doesn’t even wake and Mac wishes he could do something to make this stop.

Predictably, Mac’s pleas are ignored, and Horrell jams the end of the prod into the side of Jack’s shin. Jack starts awake screaming, his cries ragged and hoarse. 

The difference with this is that the shock doesn’t stop after thirty seconds or a minute. It goes on and on and on. Mac struggles futilely against his captors while Jack spasms and shakes like the little garter snake that Mac accidentally stepped on and killed as a kid. He’d felt so guilty that he’d cried himself to sleep for a week. 

Mac doesn’t want to think about Jack like that — his body twitching long after his heart has stopped, just another consequence of his carelessness. It’s less distressing, though not by much, to instead turn his mind to figuring out what Horrell is playing at. The leg is definitely a non-fatal target; the charge dissipates right into the floor without travelling up into the rest of Jack’s body, which means his heart and brain are mostly safe. 

Realization comes with sickening clarity in the form of a loud snapping noise. Instantly, Jack vomits onto the floor and the crackling stops. 

“Did you know that electricity could do that? That muscles could squeeze hard enough to break bones?” Horrell asks over the animal-like sounds of pain coming from Jack. “Because I would like to remind you that your friend, Jack, has plenty more bones in his body that we could break if you’re not feeling as motivated as you were before.”

Mac shakes his head. “I swear. I’m doing it, I swear. I just don’t have everything I need here. I’m having to fabricate the resistors one by one with paper, graphite, and paperclips. I need six for each chip but I can’t make them tough enough like that so I’m making them in series and that adds exponentially more. I’ve made forty-three of them so far, but I have to measure each one before I put it in so it doesn’t fry the components. It takes time. I’m not delaying, but if I don’t do this right we all die before we walk out of here.”

Horrell looks largely unconvinced, but tosses the electric prod back on the table. “Hurry the fuck up.”

Mac nods, but his eyes are on Jack. He’s shaking, sweating, and most alarmingly, crying. 

“Jack?” Mac whispers.

“Yeah?” His voice cracks and he doesn’t quite manage to get his head up high enough to properly look at Mac.

“Hang in there,” Mac says.

Jack coughs and then chokes off a shout as sitting up jossles his already painfully swollen leg. “Don’t worry about me, kid. Just like a violet wand. Just tingles a bit. In the good way.”

Mac huffs a laugh, but when he looks back over to tell Jack that he really doesn’t want to know about his sex life, Mac sees that Jack isn’t smiling and the tears haven’t stopped. Jack’s at his limit. This has to end and now.

*****

“It’s ready,” Mac says. 

The guards by the door startle to alertness and one of them heads off to find Horrell.

“Mac, don’t do this,” Jack whispers. “They’ll start a war with this thing.”

“No, they won’t,” Mac whispers back.

Jack looks at Mac like he’s about to ask more questions but the door bangs against the far wall. “It’s about time!”

Horrell claps Mac on the back like he’s a good friend. “So you’ve done it, eh?”

Mac nods. “Yeah.”

“Good, show me how it works,” Horrell demands.

“In order to program in the remote-triggering devices you’ll have to push this button here to bring the entire thing online. Once you do that, the little light there will blink in bursts of three to let you know that it’s ready to accept an input,” Mac explains.

Horrell nods and pulls out his phone. “So I just press here-”

The explosion that follows puts a six-inch hole in Horrell’s chest. The guards scramble for their weapons, but three seconds later a secondary explosion, mostly smoke (from the paper) and bright light (from the magnesium Mac scraped off of the electronic components), gives Mac the chance he needs. With the lockpick set he made earlier, he frees Jack and they make for the door.

*****

_Compartment syndrome sounds like something you’d be diagnosed with by your therapist, but it’s unfortunately a little more dangerous and a lot more painful. See, when Jack’s leg broke, the trauma to the surrounding tissue triggered significant swelling. The severing of a major blood vessel meant that blood began to pool in the surrounding tissue — a lot of blood. The pressure from the swelling and bleeding can combine to do even more damage — in this case, cutting off the blood supply to his lower leg and crushing nerves. If the pressure isn’t relieved soon, the damage will be irreversible, and we’re nowhere near a medical facility._

“I think we’re in the clear. Set me down,” Jack begs. 

Mac is happy to comply because Jack is shaking like he’s just done the polar bear plunge. With the tools he pocketed in from the workbench, he carefully splits Jack’s pants to the knee. From what he can tell only the fibula is broken which explains why he can walk on it at all. But everything else is not good; in fact, it’s very, very bad.

“I broke my leg falling off a horse. I swear it never hurt like this,” Jacks pants.

“Yeah, that’s because it wasn’t this bad,” Mac says.

“Call someone and get us an exfil,” Jack mutters as he flops indelicately onto his back. “Surely you grabbed a phone on your way out.”

“Actually, no.”

“No? Well tie some toad-stools together with poison ivy or some shit and then send up the bat-signal.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Jack. We’re going to have to hike out to exfil, or until we can find someone to help us call for medevac.”

“Mac, I can’t walk on this. My leg… this is the worst I’ve ever hurt. I’m not gonna make it out,” Jack says. He sounds tired and Mac knows he is — he’s exhausted from the electrical shocks and pain, his electrolytes are probably way out of balance, is blood sugar is probably in the tank, and his heart is still not beating correctly. So no, he’s not walking out if they can’t fix at least one of those things.

“Jack, if you want to save your leg you’re going to have to. I can operate and take some of the pressure off, should make it easier and less painful to walk, but we still need to get you to the hospital.”

“Aw, man come on. Fuck, I hate field surgery.”

“Yeah, Jack. I know. I’ll make it as quick as I can,” Mac promises. It sucks that the first thing he can really do to help Jack is hurt him some more, but Mac doesn’t see any other option.

Jack nods and swallows. “Yeah, alright. Let’s get this over with.”

Mac rifles through his pockets for the tools he managed to pilfer: paperclips, needle nose pliers, a number two Phillips head screwdriver, and a pair of depressingly dull scissors. Mac looks around the forest but most of the rocks there are pitted granite, wouldn’t do anything but dull the scissors further. After a minute of deliberation, Mac decides to go back to the creek they passed a little ways back. Without having to help Jack, he can go back, get a decent make-shift whetstone, and be back in less than ten minutes.

“Sure, kiddo. I’m not going anywhere.”

*****

_There are a lot of disadvantages to surgery in austere conditions. Of primary concern to the patient is usually the lack of pain management. Since I’m not the patient — this time — my concerns for Jack are slightly different. Out here there’s no way to make a sterile field and no access to antibiotics. There’s also nothing I can do for blood loss, not even IV fluids. That means that Jack’s heart, which is already struggling due to shock-induced arrhythmia, is going to have to work even harder. Low blood pressure is going to be a concern and I don’t have any way to stop that._

“Alright, Jack. I’m going to make two long incisions, one on either side of-”

“Mac, I love you, but please shut the hell up. I don’t want to know. Just do it, okay?”

“Sure, Jack. Brace yourself.”

The scissors could be sharper, but the cheap blades wouldn’t hold an edge. So instead of relying on his make-shift scalpel to make the cut, Mac relies on pressure. He barely makes the first pass, not nearly deep enough to reach the hematoma, before Jack is twisting away from him.

“I can’t, Mac. Please stop,” Jack begs.

Mac wanted to stop before he ever put the scissor blade to Jack’s skin, but that’s not really an option if Jack wants to live. Ignoring Jack’s pleas, Mac flips around so that he’s sitting on Jack’s thigh, effectively pinning him. Any other time and Mac would get his ass handed to him, but Jack’s in no shape to be fighting off anyone.

Mac lowers the scissor blade again, deepening the first incision and using the needle nosed pliers to rip a hole in the fascia. He can hear Jack retching behind him, his screaming interspersed with hiccuping sobs. 

In the wound, a dark pool of blood is visible, and Mac uses his finger to dig out as much as he can. It takes until most of the clotted blood is out before Mac realizes that Jack isn’t making noise anymore.

“Jack? Jack!” 

In a moment of panic, he thinks about how he’s never going to forgive himself if the last moments of Jack’s life were spent being tortured under the guise of medical care. Shakily, he presses his bloody fingers to Jacks carotid. There’s a pulse and he sighs with relief. Jack’s just fainted. While he’s still unconscious, Mac moves quickly to create the incision on the other side of Jack’s leg.

Mac sacrifices his shirt to make bandages, and then lifts Jack’s legs up until he starts to wake. He hopes like hell that this was the hardest part, that getting them to exfil is going to be easier from here on out, because putting Jack through that hell has to count for something.

*****

_If there’s one thing working with Jack has taught me, it’s that family comes from the least expected places._

“Kid, when are you gonna spring me from this joint?” Jack asks for the fourth time this morning.

Mac looks up from his stack of paper clip tools. “Jack, you still have an open wound in your leg. I can’t just unplug the wound vac and wheel you out of here.”

“Aw, come on, Mac. You can whip up something, a little homemade wound vac. Shouldn’t be that hard.”

In all honesty, it wouldn’t be, though the simpler answer would be to just break into a medical equipment closet and steal whatever they need. But Jack’s still on an EKG to monitor his heart after the less-than-pleasant cardioversion in the medevac helo, not to mention some serious IV antibiotics and pain meds. Escape from the hospital probably wouldn’t end as positively as Jack seems to think.

“How about this, when you’re out, I’ll take you to that steakhouse you’re always talking about. My treat,” Mac promises.

Jack grins, his eyes all crinkly at the corners. “Aw, Mac, you’re the best, you know that?”

“Yeah, you said that a little bit ago,” Mac confesses with a smile. Turns out morphine makes Jack repeat himself. A lot.

Jack grins. “Only because it’s true.”

Mac ducks his head, looking at his hands. They’re pink, almost raw, from how hard he scrubbed them once they landed at the hospital. Jack’s blood, and there had been a lot of blood, had dried into the ridges of his fingerprints, the wrinkles between his fingers, and under his nails. He knows there’s no reason to think he did anything wrong, but hurting some that much doesn’t feel right either. It’s a little unsettling, after everything that happened, to have Jack still so sure of Mac’s goodness. But like Jack’s mom reminded him on the phone last night, that’s what family does — they love each other. It’s not something Mac has a lot of experience with, but he doesn’t exactly mind the learning curve.


End file.
